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Keys to Joy: #1

After a nervous breakdown at age forty-three, I was left to reconstruct life as I had created it. As a working journalist, I chose a one-month joy project—a project that mercifully morphed into two life-altering years.

After two years, FIVE KEYS TO JOY emerged for me. Here is #1 (from the book Journey to Joy):

Key #1: Know (just one thing)

I know there is always a first step—the single one right before me. Not the twenty thousand that follow, or the decisions surrounding each, but this one single step in front of me.

I have learned to stop. I have learned to take the time—the time to know which direction I should go. It’s not based on where I want to end up. It’s based on my gut, my knowing self, my knowing insides that were created for the very purpose of leading me and herding me where I was always meant to go.

Just under the surface of what we think will come is what was always going to be.

It’s hard to detect, impossible at times. But, always, it is there. It’s in the genes that tell the cells to position themselves in such a way that the colour of eyes appear, that buds blossom and that hearts fit perfectly into the cozy caverns created for them.

I can only hear the whisper of what is to be when I stop to listen. And I ask the simple question, What do I want to do now?